Technically speaking, this service started out as a stand-alone rich
Java Swing application deployed with Java Web Start technology focusing
on slick and intuitive user experience and interacting with custom
server code. It soon appeared to Florent Garin,
the key DocDoku architect and a Product Life-cycle Management
expert, that the team was effectively rebuilding a mini appserver on
its own, while polished open source application servers already offered
such features (resource management,
component models, etc.). The end-resulting architecture
combines
rich Java client with the Java EE5 server-side architecture.

The team chose the GlassFish application server over JBoss as explained
in this
questionnaire
and felt that the web administration console and the NetBeans tooling
integration were the main two benefits they got from doing
so. Stability has been another benefit, with their production
GlassFish instance requiring zero restarts since going live in
September 2006.

DocDoku's service is clearly aimed at small and
medium business with price points ranging from free to €99 per
month for 20 users but it has also seen adoption in larger enterprises.